A PostBourgie Challenge: Try Not to Cringe at Any of the Quotes in this Times Article!

You will fail. Bet money.

CULLMAN, Ala. — The racial breakthroughs have come gingerly in Alabama over the years: a black mayor there, an old Klansman put on trial here, a civil rights memorial there.

And a few weeks ago, voters in a county that is more than 96 percent white chose a genial black man, James Fields, to represent them in the State House of Representatives. It is a historic first, but the moment is full of awkwardness.

“Really, I never realize he’s black,” said a white woman in a restaurant, smiling.

“He’s black?” asked Lou Bradford, a white Cullman police officer, jokingly.

“You know, I don’t even see him as black,” said another of Mr. Fields’s new white constituents, Perry Ray, the mayor of one of the county’s villages, Dodge City.

A woman congratulates Mr. Fields as he stops in traffic, and afterward, he shakes his head ruefully: “Sometimes, I have to pinch myself: ‘Am I really black?’”…

The distinction between “one of us” and something else, of course, is always present in a county where Mr. Fields still sees Confederate flags dotting the landscape.

“There’s two different races, in that race,” explained James Rice, a white resident describing black people, as Mr. Fields affably worked voters at Jack’s. “You got some that don’t want to be nothing, and you got some that want to help. You don’t find too many like James Fields.”

Race Matters Less in Politics in Deep South. [NYT]

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.

Latest posts by G.D. (see all)

  • i failed miserably before i even knew of the bet. the times is really bringing it, in black and white…i had to shout Mr. Rice out for his courageous words over at my blog this am. check it…

  • Tasha

    O ho! that’s a funny one…now…where’s the real article…ahaha…ahem…no really where’s the real article…

  • LH

    I made it without cringing! LOL But I attended university in Alabama and am intimately familiar with the racial dynamic there.

  • GVG

    I was going to put the excerpts of the parts of the story that made me cringe, but then I thought it would be redundant to repost the article in its entirety.

    where do i send my money for losing?

  • Actually I think that the headline is the most cringeworthy part.

  • We need to set up a PayPal account or something.

  • GVG

    I’m surprised you guys didn’t do anything on Malcolm X today.

  • ack, it slipped my mind.

    i’ll see what i can do to rectify it. thanks for the heads-up.

  • Big Word

    That last two different races part almost made me cringe. Then I realized he basically said the same thing Chris Rock says when he alludes to the wart between black peopple and niggas, so I was okay.

  • BW: Chris Rock’s routine doesn’t make you cringe?

  • Big Word

    Not really, I think there’s a alot of truth to that routine. What does make me cringe is the way his hands seize up when he’s holding the microphone. LOL!

  • BW: It seems that if Chris Rock is saying something that’s essentially the same as something a racist white dude is saying, Chris Rock’s bit probably deserves more scrutiny.

  • Big Word

    GD:

    Is that a hint that a detailed analysis of that routine is in the works? That’s a discussion I’d look forward too. Nevertheless, I think that a lot of us hold certain attitudes and opinions that are every bit as racist towards our own as some confederate flag waving, redneck in the backwoods of Alabama. That shouldn’t be that much of a secret nowadays.

  • BW: lol. it’s funny you say that. Stacia and I talked about it in passing before, but it’s not very timely.

    And do you mean racist towards white folks or racist toward black folks? And is one of those more dangerous than the other, or are they equally problematic.

  • Big Word

    I mean racist attitudes about “certain kinds” of black folk by other black folk. Especially those in positions of authority and civic leaders. IMO, those are the main factors for the status of a lot of lower class blacks. We have a serious dearth of leadership in our communities.

  • LH

    Big Word: Just so I’m clear, are you saying that blacks in positions of authority and civic leaders are the primary reasons that lower class blacks are lower class?

  • Big Word

    Yes, in their respective locales of course.

  • LH

    Big Word: How so, specifically?

    What role do lower class blacks play in their status?

  • Big Word

    I would say by not tailoring their civic responsibilities or authority to serve the actual needs of their communities. Drugs, jobs, houing and education come to mind. Poor people lack the resources to adequately deal with these things on their own. Public officials can do a lot more to deal with these issues than they are currently.

    A lot of lower class people make a lot of wrong choices, but then again when you’re black and poor your options tend to be quite limited.

  • LH

    Big Word: If we’re talking about responsibility we have to begin with the people themselves, not civic leaders. Civic leaders could do more, certainly, but so, too, could some lower class blacks who would sooner panhandle than get a job.

    I can’t attribute drug addiction to limited choices, nor can I rightly point to limited choices when discussing low graduation rates, grades and test scores.

    I guess what I am getting at is: people can’t want better for others than they want for themselves.

  • LH: Panhandling, fam? Oy.

    Isn’t poverty almost entirely about the paucity of desirable options? How can you say lack of choice doesn’t matter?

  • LH

    G.D.: Is poverty really about the paucity of desriable options almost entirely?

    I never said lack of options doesn’t matter but this discussion turns on how much it does. I wouldn’t know how to begin quantifying such. Would you?

  • NDH,Esq.

    This nearly made me laugh out loud* in class. Dude said he has to pinch himself?! HA.

    I’m laughing to keep from crying. Tears from a clown, fam. Tears from a clown.

  • LH: Did Afronerd steal your log-in?

    “Civic leaders could do more, certainly, but so, too, could some lower class blacks who would sooner panhandle than get a job.”

    Oh, really? Do you know anyone for whom this is true? What percentage of people who are poor panhandle, you think? Most people in the U.S. who are poor are *working*. Barbara Ehrenreich’s very good “Nickel and Dimed” is all about the working poor in America, always one bad break away from ruin.

    “I can’t attribute drug addiction to limited choices, nor can I rightly point to limited choices when discussing low graduation rates, grades and test scores.”

    Where to start? Drug addiction isn’t related to poverty? I’d point you to the very, very good nonfiction book “The Corner” by David Simon and Ed Burns; someone who grows up in a neighborhood that’s an open-air drug market has a pretty good chance of becoming a drug dealer or drug addict, don’t you think? That’s to say nothing of draconian drug laws that are ore punitive against poor people in inner cities (15 years for possession of crack in NY).

    On the school thing: do you actually *know* any poor people, or are you just guessing right now? Philadelphia (my hometown) has a public school system (of which I am a product) where HALF of the students live below the poverty line. HALF.

    Since you seem to know: can you tell those hundreds of thousands of kids — malnourished, neglected, frightened — how to check the yoke of their destitution at the door of their dillapidated school buildings (with no heat in the winter) so they can dig into their 20-year-old history books? You should read “Savage Inew

    Fifty percent of Detroiters over 16 are functionally illiterate. Are they supposed to hop into some social vacuum and NOT be even though everyone around them is?

  • LH

    G.D.: Let’s first get on the same page with our taxonomy. When I say ‘lower class blacks,’ I am not referring to the working poor. I am referring to people who are poor because they’d rather panhandle than work. I don’t know their names and SS numbers, and I don’t need to. I know they’re there. I see them. I hear them. On occasion, I give them some change or some food.

    If drug addiction is necessarily related to poverty then what about the kids who grow up on Chicago’s North Shore, for example, who are stone cold coke addicts? And they serve. These kids grow up in homes with staffs of ‘help,’ drive Porsche 911s to high school and use ‘summer’ as a verb. I’m not telling you what I read in a book, fam. I’m telling you what I KNOW. What I have seen. What I have witnessed personally, not vicariously.

    No, I don’t think that someone who grows up in an open-air drug market has a “pretty good” chance of becoming a drug addict or a drug dealer. Andy Reid’s kids grew up where, exactly? People, no matter where they are, either choose to sell or abuse drugs or they choose not to. I’m not saying or even suggesting that to grow up in an open-air drug market isn’t challenging, but the idea that it’s “pretty easy” for people who do to sell or abuse drugs is a page right out of the well-meaning, white, latently racist playbook.

    Do I “*know*” any poor people? Yes, I do. I know them intimately, having taught them for three years, and, today, being a mentor to some of them. I’m talking about today as in the here and now, fam, not when I get around to it, when I can find time, a few years ago and etcetera. I’m talking about weekly, on the ground, spending time with them where they live, meeting their parents/guardians, siblings, relatives, girlfriends, baby mamas and daddies … the whole nine yards. Yes, I actually know poor people.

    You want to know what I’ve found? Caring enough to hold them accountable for what happens to them is a big part of the answer. You can talk about heat and textbooks until you’re blue in the face but try telling that to the old black folks I have spoken to who WALKED miles each way to a one-room school house, regardless of the weather, as buses carrying white kids passed them by. And when they finally made it to their one-room school house, if they were lucky there was a stove to keep them ‘warm,’ outdated books and no indoor plumbing. Lunch? Sure, if they bought it with them. If not, oh well. You want to talk to me about dillapidated school buildings and 20-year-old text books, still? Or poverty?

    Good look on the suggested readings. Bad look on the Afronerd barb.

  • LH: How was anyone supposed to gather you only meant ‘lower class blacks who weren’t working’ when you said ‘lower class blacks’? If I misread what you said, it’s because you didn’t say it clearly.

    I didn’t say drug addiction is necessarily related to poverty, did I? I said there was a greater likelihood of being involved in illegal drugs — selling or using — if you live in an open-air drug market. The Andy Reid’s-sons-were-rich argument doesn’t change the fact that the consequences of drug use among the poor are much more dire.

    “People, no matter where they are, either choose to sell or abuse drugs or they choose not to.”

    Okay, buddy. Way too vastly oversimplify what goes into making a choice like that.

    “You can talk about heat and textbooks until you’re blue in the face but try telling that to the old black folks I have spoken to who WALKED miles each way to a one-room school house, regardless of the weather, as buses carrying white kids passed them by.”

    People are just supposed to irrationally decided to throw themselves at the mercy of institutions they’re suspicious of, disregard the realities of their lives and *will* themselves out of poverty?

    Half the people in the U.S. born into poverty will stay there. That number is 2/3s if you’re black. Getting out of poverty isn’t just about individual will; it takes a lot of help and a lot of luck.

    Anecdotally, I can tell you about my ex’s parents (Detroit public high school teachers, both) who said that even their most motivated students (usually a dozen in each graduating class) would be reading as a seventh grade level as high school seniors. These are the kids who trekked across town to get the best educations their circumstances allowed, and they were still lagging by every reasonable measure.

    and fam…you know a lot of panhandlers? how representative of poverty is panhandling, do you think?

  • LH

    G.D.: I allowed that I wasn’t specific, hence the clarification.

    We can split hairs about what living in an open-air drug market portends ad nauseum, but in the meantime my point is that people make a choice to sell and abuse drugs regardless of where they live. Those choices are sometimes the result of a confluence of complex factors but they are sometimes not. The former doesn’t warrant glossing over the latter.

    Who said anything about people throwing themselves at the mercy of institutions they’re suspicious of? What I am suggesting is the opposite, actually; students should use public schools as a way out of their dire circumstances. A kid who does solid work and tests reasonably well *may* not get into a top-tier school, but an admissions committee somewhere is going to accept him, likely with at least a partial academic scholarship.

    Will it be easy for the kid to do well in school, go to college, graduate and find a job? Probably not but what is easy? And given the stakes I think it’s worth the effort. I agree that help and luck are a part of the equation but I believe that someone somewhere (a teacher, a counselor, a principal) will help a kid who’s *really* trying.

    And yet your anecdote rings true. One former student in particular comes to mind. He worked as hard as anyone but simply didn’t get it. The system failed him. His parents failed him. I wrote him recommendations to get into several colleges and universities. Maybe I failed him, also.

    I don’t ‘know’ panhandlers. I see them. But I know where you’re headed, so let me say that not all panhandlers are impoverished. Some of them are, though.